Not so happy with our real world numbers so far in our 2014 FFH

[Eds2014FFH]

Me and my wife recently bought a 2014 Fusion hybrid. We had a 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT8 that we loved and considering what it was, it got pretty good gas milage. However, feeding a hungry 392 CID engine does require a little more fuel than we liked.(16MPG/average) Plus, when you have that kind of power on tap, it's hard not to accelerate faster and brake harder and it's kind of a mental game! Anyway, we traded in our hot rod for what I hoped would about triple our gas milage. We bought the car about two weeks ago with 3 miles on it and the computer averages around 35-38 MPG which I haven't been crazy about, but ok with. We have really changed our driving styles with much easier acceleration, more coasting, easy brakeing, and it hasn't really seemed to help much? The last tank we just checked our milage and even though the computer said 35 MPG average, we only got 31 MPG real world numbers? That's double what we were getting but from what I have seen on here, many people are getting 40+ which I would be perfectly happy with but 31 is really disappointing:( Anyone else having issues getting the awesome numbers people seem to be able to get. By the way, we live in a fairly flat terrain and most of the milage on the last tank was in town driving which is where I figured the hybrid would really shine.

Ed-

[acdii]

Too many variables to consider why, but going from a Challenger to the hybrid can be a big transition. For example, you may think you have changed driving styles, but braking and acceleration between the two are worlds apart. Add in the factor of winter blend fuels and the results you see are typical.

 

A good example would be the seat of the pants feel. You may feel like you are accelerating slowly in the FFH, only because the Challenger can put your butt in the back seat with a slight goose of the peddle. Use the Empower display and keep acceleration at the 2K(second bar) level, and be very light on the brakes to achieve 100% brake scores as much as possible. You would be surprised how big a difference a very light foot can make in these. You may also want to move the seat back a hair from where it is now to lighten the touch on the peddles. A 1/2" can make a huge difference between 30 MPG and 40 MPG.

[Toz]

After reading these forums for quite some time now and seeing many of these type of posts, one of the best bits of advice I have seen is "Give it some time" Last year we saw lot of people getting their first Hybrid just as winter was starting and having LOTS of heartburn over their gas mileage. Between the learning curve of a Hybrid and winter temps/fuel blend there were lots of disappointed new owners. However by spring, most all of them were reporting MUCH better mileage and satisfaction. So just give it a little bit of time, enjoy your new car and try some of the great driving tips to be found on the Hybrid forum :)

[jeff_h]

A good illustration of how driving styles are really a big deal: last week my wife (who says she tries to drive smoothly for good MPG) drove my car across town from a store that is right near a gas station that I sometimes use. It is really favorable terrain that includes a big long downhill, so when I start off from that gas station I drive the 6 miles home and average 80-84 MPG (again, really high due to the long downhill)... she did the same drive on Friday and got 42. On normal around-town driving I will average 50-55 (knowing when to drive like grandpa and when to make the ICE run to charge the HVB at the right time, etc) and she averages 35-38... same car, same town, definitely different driving styles.

[corncobs]

Ed you already got three very good posts nothing more to add!

[lolder]

Danica Patrick not withstanding, good mileage is not important to most women and their thoughts are frequently elsewhere, like how to please their partner at dinner. My wife is a safe driver accident free for 52 years but when she drives my 2010 FFH for a day, it takes me a week of nursing to get the numbers back up above 40 mpg. She is on and off the throttle all the time unconsciously and no amount of cajoling has solved it. This is a very common thread across all the hybrid brands. She loves the car but she'll never get good numbers.

[Eds2014FFH]

Well, thanks for the replies! It is new and we do love the car. It drives so much different than the power hungry Challenger. We really notice that we take a whole different mindset to our driving and now we are the slow pokes that we were always in such a hurry to get around before...why?? Funny how the power goes to your head and you just want to go!! I do notice that we still out accelerate the majority of people from stoplights so maybe we still need to back off a bit more on take off. I find it fun to see how much I can keep it in EV mode. Do most people that get the 45+ MPG use only the EV mode to accelerate off stoplights and such? I feel like it takes forever to do that so I go ahead and get her up to speed then let off the gas until the EV mode kicks in and try to ride it under the threshhold for as long as I can. Maybe I do have much to learn still. Thanks again,

[acdii]

Once you get some miles in, you will find that you will be letting the car decide more on when it should be in EV or ICE. Eventually if you travel the same route every day, you will find when and where to switch. Just this morning on my daily route, it was 34* and I still managed to get 47.3( of course the 20 MPH tail wind had something to do with it). My trip home, I just drive, I gave up trying to maximize with the way the traffic is so erratic and lights that have no rhythm, I still keep a good distance from the cars ahead and give myself plenty of braking room, but since there is much more of it going home, there is more accelerating, so getting 41 is about average now. I just let the car decide, and it seems to be doing quite well.

 

 

With this being your first Hybrid, there are several stickies about that give great insight on how best to drive this car. It isnt easy, but over time it will all fall into place and you will soon become like the rest of us proud Fusion owners. :)

[GrySql]

When acdii says 'several stickies' he means there are driving tips on this Forum that will include the things that you are talking about, like acceleration.

I have a fast car parked next to my FFH, so do many of us and learning this hybrid took some time and discipline.

One of the silent benefits of learning to drive the FFH correctly is the ease in which you get places and how well you feel when you arrive, rested and not feeling like you just drank 5 Red Bull drinks.

That is why I call mine 'The Time Machine', we get in, drive to the destination and get out calm and rested, like it never happened - even long trips.

 

The following 'pinned' topic was put together using things we've learned along the way and is your shortcut to better mpg's, check it out:

http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/6994-fuel-economy-tip-list/

Edited November 19, 2013 by GrySql

[lolder]

You should try to get used to looking as far ahead as possible for the traffic signals and back off the instant you know you won't make the green. Don't impede the other speed demons though. Pick a lane where you can coast up to the light and avoid coming to a full stop at all costs. Sometimes someone will get ahead of you but often you'll glide by them as they accelerate off the light. This is more than a new driving method, it's a lifestyle change that GrySql put very well above. You'll see the tremendous waste of energy that is occuring on our roads with scant reduction of travel times. For some this is hard but give it a try. Leaving 5 minutes earlier on a commute will make you think you have actually slept in another hour because of the lowered stress. Don't be a nuisance to the other drivers that haven't seen the light yet.

[corncobs]

4 more - this shows again what a great forum this is. It's so much fun that I continue to read even while being 4000 miles away from my FFH.

Edited November 19, 2013 by corncobs

[lolder]

Traffic lights are the symbol of man's inability to deal with his social problems. Co-operation has not yet permeated vehicle operation and we have this present dangerous system. We all love to drive these cars but a new method of operating vehicles is almost here with the autonomous cars like Google and the already for-sale Mercedes 550. Another system under development by the SAE called V to V could eventually eliminate traffic signals. In V to V, all vehicles communicate data to each other by short range radio and they interleave their paths at intersections. There's a graphic somewhere that shows a big intersection with continuous flow. It looks a little like traffic in Calcutta without the collisions. When collisions become rare, vehicles can be designed much more simply and lighter. A huge part of automotive design today assumes the vehicle will be in a collision. Fatalities are increasing above 33,000/ year again.

[hybridbear]

A good illustration of how driving styles are really a big deal: last week my wife (who says she tries to drive smoothly for good MPG) drove my car across town from a store that is right near a gas station that I sometimes use. It is really favorable terrain that includes a big long downhill, so when I start off from that gas station I drive the 6 miles home and average 80-84 MPG (again, really high due to the long downhill)... she did the same drive on Friday and got 42. On normal around-town driving I will average 50-55 (knowing when to drive like grandpa and when to make the ICE run to charge the HVB at the right time, etc) and she averages 35-38... same car, same town, definitely different driving styles.

Danica Patrick not withstanding, good mileage is not important to most women and their thoughts are frequently elsewhere, like how to please their partner at dinner. My wife is a safe driver accident free for 52 years but when she drives my 2010 FFH for a day, it takes me a week of nursing to get the numbers back up above 40 mpg. She is on and off the throttle all the time unconsciously and no amount of cajoling has solved it. This is a very common thread across all the hybrid brands. She loves the car but she'll never get good numbers.

This is exactly what happens with my wife and I. This is why when we needed to go back to having two cars we got a Prius for her to drive. This way she can drive like lolder & Jeff_h describe and still get 45ish MPG compared to the 38-42 she would get when driving the Fusion. Meanwhile I continue get 55+ in the Fusion. Sadly though, winter is hear and my MPGs in the FFH are dropping like a rock. The current tank has been a struggle to keep at 50 MPG. Most of my driving is Friday, Saturday & Sunday and I averaged under 50 MPG for those 3 days this past weekend for the first time since when we last had snow on the ground in April.

[hybridbear]

Me and my wife recently bought a 2014 Fusion hybrid. We had a 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT8 that we loved and considering what it was, it got pretty good gas milage. However, feeding a hungry 392 CID engine does require a little more fuel than we liked.(16MPG/average) Plus, when you have that kind of power on tap, it's hard not to accelerate faster and brake harder and it's kind of a mental game! Anyway, we traded in our hot rod for what I hoped would about triple our gas milage. We bought the car about two weeks ago with 3 miles on it and the computer averages around 35-38 MPG which I haven't been crazy about, but ok with. We have really changed our driving styles with much easier acceleration, more coasting, easy brakeing, and it hasn't really seemed to help much? The last tank we just checked our milage and even though the computer said 35 MPG average, we only got 31 MPG real world numbers? That's double what we were getting but from what I have seen on here, many people are getting 40+ which I would be perfectly happy with but 31 is really disappointing:( Anyone else having issues getting the awesome numbers people seem to be able to get. By the way, we live in a fairly flat terrain and most of the milage on the last tank was in town driving which is where I figured the hybrid would really shine.

Ed-

Ed, welcome and congrats on your FFH. Check out the links posted by GrySql. They are really helpful. I don't really have anything else to add because everyone else has said it so well. I mainly just wanted to reiterate the value of the comments above and of reading the links posted by GrySql.

[corncobs]

This is exactly what happens with my wife and I. This is why when we needed to go back to having two cars we got a Prius for her to drive. This way she can drive like lolder & Jeff_h describe and still get 45ish MPG compared to the 38-42 she would get when driving the Fusion. Meanwhile I continue get 55+ in the Fusion. Sadly though, winter is hear and my MPGs in the FFH are dropping like a rock. The current tank has been a struggle to keep at 50 MPG. Most of my driving is Friday, Saturday & Sunday and I averaged under 50 MPG for those 3 days this past weekend for the first time since when we last had snow on the ground in April.

HB you sure are complaining at a high level my friend. ;-)

[acdii]

HB you sure are complaining at a high level my friend. ;-)

LOL he is starting to sound like I did. :)

 

 

Not really, but you know what I mean. :love_shower: :wub:

[B25Nut]

Do most people that get the 45+ MPG use only the EV mode to accelerate off stoplights and such? I feel like it takes forever to do that so I go ahead and get her up to speed then let off the gas until the EV mode kicks in and try to ride it under the threshhold for as long as I can. Maybe I do have much to learn still. Thanks again,

Unless you are on a downslope, I have found it is better to accelerate with the ICE and then back off, just as you are doing. Struggling to keep it in EV to eke out a couple more MPG isn't worth the damage to the macho part of my ego.

Be patient. After nine months of driving back in July my Engage display read 36 mpg. It is now at 41.7 mpg. The FFH does get better with age.

[ptjones]

Just got 2014FFH SE rental car and have averaged 52MPG for the day so far.

 

Paul

[terryb]

One thing I have not seen mentioned here in this thread so far is how much the FFH HATES very short trips <10 mi. I retired in '12 and found that my short drives to the grocery and coffee breaks cause poor mileage on the outbound trip. e.g. 33 mpg going to and 48 mpg coming home. The technique used is to always drive to the far end of the planned destinations first and drive back through the shorter segments. This lets the car get warmed up and charged up before making the first stop. Good luck wjth your learning curve.

[Eds2014FFH]

Again thanks all for the great replies! We will continue to live and learn in our new FFH. It really is a fun car to drive and looks good too!

[ptjones]

It is frustrating that 2014 eliminated Life Time Scores, You could have watched your Brake Score get better. :drop:

 

Paul